Rutledge Shepp
7 Published Stories
Rutledge Shepp's Books and Stories
Regret Is Useless: The Mafia Queen Rises
Mafia I was a Mafia Princess, and he was the gutter rat I tried to make a King.
On our wedding day, with five hundred guests watching, Luca Moretti didn't say his vows.
Instead, after receiving a photo of a secret child, he looked at me with panic and backed away from the altar.
"I can't do this," he announced to the silent church. "She's here. She'll ruin the kid."
He chose a waitress and their illegitimate daughter over me.
He walked out, leaving me humiliated in a dress that cost more than most people's lives.
Forty-eight hours later, he married her.
He gave the waitress my ring, my future, and his name, all to protect a child he had hidden from me.
When I confronted him weeks later, he looked at me with cold eyes and told me he did it for honor.
He destroyed me to save them, convinced I would fade away into the background.
He thought he could break a Vitiello and not pay the price.
Five years later, I returned to Chicago.
The gala went silent as I walked in, wearing blood-red silk.
Luca approached me, eyes full of regret, begging for a second chance, claiming his marriage to the waitress was a mistake.
He thought he could win me back.
Until a little girl ran into the room—my daughter.
And behind her walked my husband.
Not a soldier, but the Reaper himself, Dante Cavallaro.
Luca’s face turned pale as he realized the truth.
He had left me at the altar to play father, but I had married the Devil to become a Queen. Lies, Love, and Loss
Romance My wedding was three days away when the police told me my fiancé, David Reed, was dead, lost to the sea in a hiking accident. Just like that, I became a pregnant widow, my world turning gray.
Then, David' s older brother, Mark Reed, returned from Africa. When I saw him, the resemblance to David was shocking, a ghost in my living room with a slightly deeper voice. I found myself staring, haunted by his presence.
One night, the baby kicking, I overheard voices from the study. It was David' s laugh. My blood ran cold, and I crept closer, the door ajar. "You have to be more careful, David. She almost looked at you funny today," Eleanor whispered. "Relax, Mom. She' s a wreck," David sneered, his voice dripping with confidence. My grief was a joke.
He had faked his death for Aisha, a mistress he planned to return to once her supposed terminal illness ran its course. I was a backup plan, a safety net. His mother, the woman who had held me while I cried, was in on the disgusting lie.
The pain in my abdomen intensified, a physical manifestation of my agony. I stumbled back to my room, locking the door. My brother Chris called, saying I' d sent a blank text. I heard Aisha' s soft giggle in the hall. She was here, in my house, looking healthy and triumphant.
Her eyes met mine through the crack in the door, a cruel, deliberate look that said, "I have him. You have nothing." My mind went blank with rage, then settled into a chilling calm. The game was on. His Death Day, Her Wedding Day
Romance The phone felt heavy in my hand, a cold, dead weight.
It had been a year since I last heard her voice, a year of silence that felt like a lifetime.
My doctor' s words echoed in my head: "Glioblastoma, stage four. I' m sorry, Ethan. We' re talking months, maybe less."
I called her, my thumb hovering over the button.
"Happy wedding day," I said, pushing the words out. "And the second thing… you once promised that you' d carry my coffin after I die."
The line went dead.
A week after that promise, Olivia had left me. "I never loved you, Ethan," she had said, her face a mask of indifference.
Her words broke me more than the illness ever could.
That' s why I was in Zurich, in a sterile room, scheduled to end my life tomorrow.
But then I saw her, by the lake, skipping stones, just like we used to.
As I took a step towards her, a man came up, wrapping his arm around her waist. Liam Stone.
"Olivia' s fiancé," he said, extending a hand. "We' re actually getting married tomorrow."
My death day would be her wedding day. The universe had a sick sense of humor.
I fled, only to stumble into the path of an oncoming tram. Olivia saved me, pulling me back.
But as she pulled me up, her sleeve rode up, and I saw it: a silver bracelet, engraved with "L.S."
She had been with him while we were still together. My life, my love, my everything, was a lie.
"I' m dying," I told her, hoarse. "I have a brain tumor."
Her facade cracked. Then, she asked me for a favor. "I need you to take the photos, Ethan. Just for the ceremony."
I agreed, on one condition: "I want a photo. Just one. Of you and me. Together."
She agreed, then immediately abandoned me for Liam.
At the wedding, she used my origami stars, our special date on her new wedding ring.
"It never meant anything, Ethan," she said, her eyes cold. "It was never real."
I was numb. I left, heading back to the clinic, my fate sealed.
Then, a text from Liam: We could use an extra hand with some last-minute wedding preparations.
He was trying to buy my compliance, to turn my final day into a transaction.
Fine, I replied.
I didn' t know why I agreed. Maybe I needed to burn the image of her happiness into my brain so I could finally let go. The Chef, The CEO, and The Second Chance
LGBT+ We were two weeks away from our wedding, a culmination of seven years I' d poured into supporting Nicole' s dream.
Then, she dropped a bomb: she was going to be a surrogate for Ryan, her deceased mentor' s manipulative son, because "he needed this."
She left me stranded at a funeral in a storm, prioritized his emotional needs over my life-threatening allergy, and when I faced a high fever alone, she quietly packed an overnight bag to go stay with him.
Each abandonment was a calculated betrayal, a casual cruelty that ripped through my heart, leaving me invisible and discarded.
I looked at her, at the woman who had systematically erased my worth, and realized: my future, my very existence, meant absolutely nothing to her.
So I wrote a desperate Instagram post: "Wedding in two weeks. Need a new bride. Any takers?" My phone buzzed, and an unknown number with a Seattle area code changed everything. Wives of War: A Hale Family Saga
Billionaires We were the Hale brothers, Liam and Ethan, groomed to inherit an empire of power and influence.
Our upcoming engagement dinner wasn't just a celebration; it was the strategic alliance that would cement our dynasty.
But on the eve of that pivotal night, a blinding flash, a screech, and a brutal car crash threw us into a living nightmare.
I saw it all with horrifying clarity: our future, laid bare.
Our names, smeared across every screen as traitors.
Our father' s empire, dissolving into dust.
And leading the charge?
Our fiancées, Ava and Chloe, their faces masks of cold righteousness as they delivered soul-crushing lies to federal investigators, all orchestrated by Julian, their hidden puppet master.
Ava accusing me of illegal server access, Chloe claiming Ethan's desperation.
Two unforgivable lies, whispered by the women we loved, fueled by a shadow.
The memory of a gun in my hand, Ethan's shot, then my own – the only escape from prison – was an unbearable weight.
Then, a gasp.
The smell of antiseptic.
Waking in a hospital bed, Ethan beside me, his eyes wide with the same shared horror.
The nurse smiled brightly: "Just in time for your family dinner tonight!"
The engagement dinner.
Our last chance.
Not fools this time. Her Ice Heart, His Bitter End
Romance My father arranged my marriage to Liam, the man I' d secretly loved for a decade.
But on our wedding night, Liam, seeing only a gilded cage and forced manipulation, turned his back, muttering, "You got what you wanted, Ava."
He fled overseas for three years, leaving me to raise our daughter, Grace, alone.
He returned with his ex-girlfriend Chloe and her daughter Skylar.
Liam shamelessly favored Skylar, explicitly neglecting Grace, even re-gifting Chloe's old scarf to me.
Confirmation of his true life came from a public video where he boasted of "peak happiness" with Chloe and her child.
My heart, once foolishly hopeful, shattered into ice.
The man I loved was a brutal illusion; the one in that video, smiling with another's child, was real.
How could he be so utterly cruel to his own flesh and blood, treating me merely as a disposable burden?
The final snap came when Grace suffered a severe allergic reaction.
Liam, however, prioritized Skylar' s minor heat rash, diverting critically needed specialists.
As Grace gasped, her innocent whisper, "Mommy, if Daddy likes Skylar more, it's okay. I just need you," ignited an unbreakable resolve.
He would never hurt her again. Second Chance With My Disabled Boyfriend
Young Adult Caleb served as an assistant for four years and a canary for three years.
I never thought I could walk out of that villa that imprisoned me.
Nathan, the poor school grass with disabled legs, returned after six years abroad and successfully defeated the Griffin Group.
Caleb went bankrupt and became a destitute.
Nathan carried me out of that villa, holding me in his hands like a princess for a year.
On my 26th birthday, I was killed by Caleb in the villa.
Nathan, covered in blood, held me and said calmly, "Yaoyao, you go first, I will follow soon."
Looking at his tearful eyes, I desperately prayed to the gods to save him and let him live.
The gods answered my prayers.
When I opened my eyes again, I was back to 18 years old.
Nathan, this time it's my turn to save you. You might like
My Cold Heart: Rejecting The Mafia Boss
Jia Zhong My husband, the Outfit’s most feared Consigliere, stood up and buttoned his suit jacket.
He had just convinced a jury that Sofia Moretti was innocent.
But we both knew the truth: Sofia had poisoned my mother over a spilled martini on her Valentino dress.
Instead of comforting me, Dante looked at me with cold, dead eyes.
"If you make a scene," he whispered, gripping my arm until it bruised, "I will bury you in a psychiatric ward so deep even God won't find you."
To protect the Family alliance, he sacrificed his wife.
When I tried to fight back, he drugged me at a gala.
He let a private investigator take photos of me, naked and unconscious, just to have leverage to keep me silent.
He paraded Sofia around our penthouse, letting her wear my dead mother’s shawl while I was banished to the staff quarters.
He thought he had broken me.
He thought I was just a nurse’s daughter he could manage.
But he made a fatal error.
He didn't read the "committal forms" I handed him to sign.
They were divorce papers, transferring his assets to me.
And the night of the yacht party, while he toasted to his victory with my mother's killer, I left my wedding ring on the deck.
I didn't jump to die.
I jumped to be reborn.
And when I resurfaced, I made sure Dante Russo burned for every sin. Contract With The Devil: Love In Shackles
Dorine Koestler I watched my husband sign the papers that would end our marriage while he was busy texting the woman he actually loved.
He didn't even glance at the header. He just scribbled the sharp, jagged signature that had signed death warrants for half of New York, tossed the file onto the passenger seat, and tapped his screen again.
"Done," he said, his voice devoid of emotion.
That was Dante Moretti. The Underboss. A man who could smell a lie from a mile away but couldn't see that his wife had just handed him an annulment decree disguised beneath a stack of mundane logistics reports.
For three years, I scrubbed his blood out of his shirts. I saved his family's alliance when his ex, Sofia, ran off with a civilian.
In return, he treated me like furniture.
He left me in the rain to save Sofia from a broken nail. He left me alone on my birthday to drink champagne on a yacht with her. He even handed me a glass of whiskey—her favorite drink—forgetting that I despised the taste.
I was merely a placeholder. A ghost in my own home.
So, I stopped waiting. I burned our wedding portrait in the fireplace, left my platinum ring in the ashes, and boarded a one-way flight to San Francisco.
I thought I was finally free. I thought I had escaped the cage.
But I underestimated Dante.
When he finally opened that file weeks later and realized he had signed away his wife without looking, the Reaper didn't accept defeat.
He burned down the world to find me, obsessed with reclaiming the woman he had already thrown away. My Husband's Brother Owns My Secret
Rabbit My marriage to Joshua Caldwell was a prison sentence. I was a Hartman trophy, sold to the powerful family who had destroyed mine.
Then I discovered he was cheating. His mistress was pregnant with the child he denied me, and he was stealing my secret song lyrics to build her career. When I confronted him, he called me a spineless liability and threatened to destroy what was left of my family.
To make matters worse, a one-night stand with a stranger turned out to be with my husband's brother, Anthony Caldwell-the Don of the city. He knew all of Joshua's secrets and used them to trap me in a twisted game, seeing me as nothing more than an asset.
They both thought I was a broken doll they could control.
I wrote a song for his mistress, a beautiful execution with a single, impossible note I knew would destroy her voice.
She sang it, and now her career is over.
Now the Don has summoned me to Chicago, not knowing the woman he thinks is his asset is the one who just burned his brother's world to the ground. From Trash To Treasure: Masked Heiress
Yuan Xiluo I was the invisible failure of the Goff family, hiding my medical genius behind a report card full of Fs and a slumped posture. One rainy night, I found a man bleeding out in a dark alley behind the school gymnasium, a knife protruding from his gut.
To keep the police from digging into my secrets, I dragged the dying stranger to my bedroom and stitched him up using a hidden surgical kit. I thought I was being careful, but my cousin Cleora caught a glimpse of the blood and immediately alerted my fiancé's wealthy family.
By morning, my world collapsed as my future in-laws stormed the manor, throwing an annulment agreement at my feet. They called me a "loose woman" and "million-dollar trash," while my own housekeeper gleefully testified against me. At school, the word "SLUT" was spray-painted across my locker in jagged red letters, and the boy I was supposed to marry looked at me with nothing but cold revulsion.
I didn't understand why they were so eager to destroy me before even asking for the truth. I was the one who had spent years protecting this family's reputation, yet they were throwing me to the wolves over a single misunderstanding. I felt a surge of cold fury as I realized my loyalty had been met with nothing but betrayal.
Everything changed when the "dying" stranger finally walked down the stairs, shirtless and bandaged, revealing himself as Braylon Lancaster, the most powerful man in the city. He didn't just defend me; he froze my fiancé's entire family fortune with a single phone call.
As my in-laws fled in terror, a courier arrived with a five-carat pink diamond from the head of the city's most dangerous crime syndicate. The note read: "The debt is acknowledged." Suddenly, I wasn't just a failure anymore-I was the most sought-after woman in the underworld. His Discarded Gem: Shining In The Ruthless Don's Arms
Temple Madison For four years, I traced the bullet scar on Chace’s chest, believing it was proof he would bleed to keep me safe.
On our anniversary, he told me to wear white because "tonight changes everything." I walked into the gala thinking I was getting a ring.
Instead, I stood frozen in the center of the ballroom, drowning in silk, watching him slide his mother's sapphire onto another woman's finger.
Karyn Warren. The daughter of a rival family.
When I begged him with my eyes to claim me, to save me from the public humiliation, he didn't flinch. He just leaned toward his Underboss, his voice amplified by the silence.
"Karyn is for power. Ember is for pleasure. Don't confuse the assets."
My heart didn't just break; it incinerated. He expected me to stay as his mistress, threatening to dig up my dead mother’s grave if I refused to play the obedient pet.
He thought I was trapped. He thought I had nowhere to go because of my father’s massive gambling debts.
He was wrong.
With shaking hands, I pulled out my phone and texted the one name I was never supposed to use.
Keith Mosley. The Don. The monster under Chace's bed.
*I am invoking the Blood Oath. My father’s debt. I am ready to pay it.*
His reply came three seconds later, buzzing against my palm like a warning.
*The price is marriage. You belong to me. Yes or No?*
I looked up at Chace, who was laughing with his new fiancée, thinking he owned me.
I looked down and typed three letters.
*Yes.* The Capo's Scarred Wife: A Vicious Comeback
Sofia Wade I was the Chicago Outfit's princess, and Luca and Matteo were my sworn protectors. We had mixed our blood at ten years old, promising that nothing would ever touch me.
But that oath turned to ash the night Sofia Ricci aimed a Roman candle at my chest.
The firework slammed into my shoulder, igniting my silk dress instantly. As I rolled on the concrete, screaming while the flames ate into my skin, I waited for my boys to save me.
They didn't.
Instead, I watched through the smoke as they rushed to Sofia. They wrapped their jackets—the ones meant to shield me—around the girl who had just set me on fire, comforting her because the "kickback" had scared her.
They let me burn to keep her warm.
When I woke up in the hospital with permanent scars, they brought me a letter of apology from her and defended her "accident." They even cut their palms to pay her debt, ignoring the fact that I was the one in bandages.
That was the moment Elena Vitiello died.
I didn't scream. I didn't beg. I simply packed my bags and defected to the one place they couldn't follow: the arms of Dante Moretti, the lethal Capo of New York.
By the time they realized their mistake and came crawling back to beg in the rain, I was already wearing another man's ring.
"You want forgiveness?" I asked, looking down at them.
"Burn for it." Marrying The Rival: My Ex-Husband's Despair
Fonz Nadherny I stood outside my husband's study, the perfect mafia wife, only to hear him mocking me as an "ice sculpture" while he entertained his mistress, Aria.
But the betrayal went deeper than infidelity.
A week later, my saddle snapped mid-jump, leaving me with a shattered leg. Lying in the hospital bed, I overheard the conversation that killed the last of my love.
My husband, Alessandro, knew Aria had sabotaged my gear. He knew she could have killed me.
Yet, he told his men to let it go. He called my near-death experience a "lesson" because I had bruised his mistress's ego.
He humiliated me publicly, freezing my accounts to buy family heirlooms for her. He stood by while she threatened to leak our private tapes to the press.
He destroyed my dignity to play the hero for a woman he thought was a helpless orphan.
He had no idea she was a fraud.
He didn't know I had installed micro-cameras throughout the estate while he was busy pampering her.
He didn't know I had hours of footage showing his "innocent" Aria sleeping with his guards, his rivals, and even his staff, laughing about how easy he was to manipulate.
At the annual charity gala, in front of the entire crime family, Alessandro demanded I apologize to her.
I didn't beg. I didn't cry.
I simply connected my drive to the main projector and pressed play. You Can't Buy My Heart, Mr. Vitiello
JENNIFER JARVIS My father sold me to the Vitiello Crime Family to settle a three-million-dollar gambling debt.
For three years, I was Dante Vitiello’s property. I warmed his bed, tended his wounds, and let him own every part of me.
I thought I was earning my freedom. I thought I mattered.
Then his "true queen," the Mafia Princess Sofia, returned to the city.
Dante pushed me off his lap the moment she walked into the room. He ordered me to leave because, in the presence of his equal, I was nothing more than "the help."
The humiliation didn't stop there.
He evicted me from the penthouse to renovate it for her.
At a gala, he outbid me for my grandmother’s heirloom bracelet—my family's last scrap of dignity—just to gift it to Sofia in front of the entire city.
But the final blow came when he came to my bed drunk one last time.
He kissed me with a desperate hunger, whispering that he was only "practicing" his technique on me so he would be perfect for her.
I realized then that I wasn't a person to him. I was a training dummy. A debt with a pulse.
He told me to wait for him while he took her to Paris. He thought I would stay in the kennel like a good pet.
He was wrong.
While he was gone, I accepted a surgical fellowship in Switzerland.
I snapped my SIM card in half, left his millions on the floor, and boarded a one-way flight.
By the time the Wolf comes home to find his cage empty, I will be gone. 
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